When a college football player is eye-opening good, you “tweak” the system to fit his skills.
And new University of Miami quarterback Jake Garcia, one of several prize recruits hauled in by the Hurricanes on Wednesday during the first day of the early signing period, apparently has significant skills.
But those skills don’t include taking off and using one’s feet to evade defenders the jaw-dropping way current quarterback D’Eriq King does.
No worries, assured UM recruiting director David Cooney and director of player personnel Andy Vaughn during Zoom interviews Thursday.
“The guy can play,’’ Vaughn said. “He can make all the throws. He is athletic. He is not asked to do that a lot but he is an athletic player who can really makes some things happen with his feet if he needs to. He still fits really well.
“We’re going to look for the best players we can, and if we have to tweak a little bit here or there we’d be willing to do that. We just can’t turn down a really good player like Jake.’’
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AMONG THE BEST
Garcia, a consensus 4-star listed by Miami as 6-3 and 200 pounds, was rated the nation’s No. 2 pocket passer by ESPN and No. 5 pro-style quarterback by the 247Sports composite and Rivals.com. He has represented five high schools in four seasons: two in his home state of California that included one where he planned to play his senior season before the pandemic hit and prohibited football; another at Valdosta in Georgia, where he moved with his father and was declared ineligible because of transfer rules; and finally at Grayson in Loganville, Georgia, where he is finishing his career in the state playoffs.
According to Max Preps, Garcia has completed 412 of 584 passes (70.5 percent) for 6,087 yards in four seasons, with 58 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. He has run for six touchdowns in high school. This season, in six games for Grayson (12-0) as Garcia awaits a Friday Class 7A semifinal against Norcross (13-0), he has completed 51 of 87 passes (58.6) for 916 yards and 10 touchdowns, with three interceptions. He added two touchdown runs on 15 carries for -10 yards because of sacks.
In a 247Sports video Wednesday night after announcing his signing with the Canes, Garcia, who had been committed to Southern Cal but decommitted early this month, said he “picked Miami because it felt like home.’’
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‘FEELS LIKE HOME’
“Miami had been on my mind for so long and it’s obviously been there, in the front of my mind, for a reason. It just feels like home. I know the people want me there, I know the coaches want me there, the players want me there. It feels like home and I mean, let’s go win a national championship. I think that’s the place we can do that.”
Cooney was asked how much hurry-up, no-huddle-type offenses Garcia has played in during his career — such as the one accomplished offensive UM coordinator Rhett Lashlee runs.
“When he was at Narbonne [High in Los Angeles] they were a pretty heavy tempo team,’’ Cooney said. “But I would liken Jake’s game more to Shane Buechele when Rhett was at SMU — didn’t have pretty much any call QB run but he was able to get the ball out of his hands quickly, make reads down the field and that’s where Jake excels. So we’re going to always play to our personnel’s strong suits and that’s one of the reasons Jake decided to be a Hurricane.
“He saw in Coach Lashlee when they met, when they Zoomed, when they FaceTimed and when they talked, Rhett did an amazing job of making that kid feel comfortable with the offensive scheme and the things that we felt like what we wanted him to do once he got here. I think it’s going to be a great fit for him.”
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ADAPTING TO QB
Garcia told 247Sports that “Miami’s offense was phenomenal’’ this season. “With Coach Lashlee, you go in, you put up numbers, he puts you in a good position to win. He’s had different styles of quarterbacks, so I know he can adapt to his quarterbacks.’’
Garcia was also pleased with how UM’s signing class reached out to him and got to know him and in essence helped coaches with the recruiting by being unofficial ambassadors. “I know everybody,’’ he said. “...The whole class has been there for me throughout the whole process and even before I committed.
“Those boys are the real deal,’’ Garcia said of UM’s three new 4-star receiver signees — Plantation’s Jacolby George, Miami Northwestern’s Romello Brinson and Miami Palmetto’s Brashard Smith — in the 247sports video . “Those are receivers that get you out of trouble. They’re fun to throw to.’’
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EARLY ENROLLEE
Garcia will arrive in Coral Gables next month as an early enrollee, all the better to prepare him for his career. It still has not been revealed whether King will return for an NCAA-granted extra year of eligibility, but Garcia will have plenty of competition in current freshman Tyler Van Dyke, redshirt junior N’Kosi Perry and redshirt freshman Peyton Matocha.
“Jake is a real exciting player,’’ Vaughn said. “The guy just has a presence about him. When he walks in a room people kind of perk up. People gravitate to him.”
Vaughn said Lashlee “is very particular about what he looks for in guys’’ and that Lashlee, who had previously met Garcia, “loved everything about him.’’
Said Cooney: “His confidence just oozes off of him... I’ll never forget when he did that workout [last year at UM] and it was all eyes on him and he didn’t flinch. You rarely see coach [Manny] Diaz smile when a kid is working out but when Jake finished that workout it was one of those, ‘Hey I think we have one in this one so we’ve got to continue to recruit him.’
“That leadership, that passion are two key traits in a quarterback you have to have and we think we’ve got that in Jake.’’
